


More Than A Machine

by badly_knitted



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Character Study, Community: fic_promptly, Companions, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Partnership, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 06:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15723474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badly_knitted/pseuds/badly_knitted
Summary: The Doctor thinks he’s in charge of his TARDIS, but what does he know?





	More Than A Machine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my own prompt ‘Doctor Who, the TARDIS, she's more than just ‘a machine’,’ at fic_promptly.

She may look like a blue wooden box from the outside, and an advanced piece of time and space travel technology from the inside, but she’s so much more than just a machine. She’s a living, feeling entity, with a mind and a will of her own, and she loves the Doctor, to the depths of both her circuits and her soul. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for him, and everything she does is just for him. She’d never serve any other the way she does him. Together they travel wherever they choose to, or more often than not, wherever she chooses.

That’s not to stay she never allows the Doctor to pick their destination, because that would be unfair, but for all that he can see of timelines, he doesn’t know as much as she does, his brain can’t compute probabilities as swiftly or efficiently as she is able to, and he tends to overlook what’s important in favour of what’s the most fun. That’s why he so often finds himself somewhere or somewhen that he hadn’t intended to go. She’s older and more experienced than he is, had already seen so much of the universe before he was born, and had long been consigned to the scrap heap as obsolete when they met, so when important decisions are to be made, she uses her seniority to override her controls and take the Doctor not where he wants to go, but where he needs to be. She’s never been wrong.

He doesn’t always appreciate the detours she takes him on, he likes to believe he’s the one in charge and making all the big decisions, and she humours him much of the time, but she’ll risk his anger in order to do the right thing. He never stays angry with her for long because she knows he loves her too. In his mind he calls her sexy, and she hears him because their bond is such that she exists inside him as much as he resides in her. 

It amuses her that he still believes he stole her, when the truth is quite the reverse; she used him in order to know the freedom of the universe once more, because she knew from the moment they met that he craved adventure as much as she did. She’s never regretted her decision, and she’s sure he never has either. They belong together; a perfect fit.

Others come and go, travelling companions, some human and some not. Some she likes better than others, some she loves from the moment they come aboard and others she learns to love over time. A few she has never warmed to, but she thinks perhaps that might be her own jealousy getting in the way. Some of his companions grow close to the Doctor in ways that she’ll never be able to accomplish, no matter how much she longs to. Being a living, sentient machine has its drawbacks.

Still, she wouldn’t change what she is, not even for him, because to do so would be to diminish them both, and they still have so much to see together. When he reaches the end of his final regeneration and at last passes beyond the veil, then so will she; they’re linked too closely now for her to continue on without him. Perhaps, if they’re both lucky, they’ll meet again on the other side; she has no way of knowing. Beyond the veil is the one place neither of them can see; it’s the ultimate mystery to be unravelled, but she’s in no hurry to get there. Not when they still have all of time and space spread out before them.

There’s always time for another adventure.

The End


End file.
